In this lead guitar lesson sample video, now available on YouTube.com, Jon MacLennan teaches how to play a cool Blues Turnaround lick in the style of Eric Clapton.

(PRWEB) February 08, 2014

The Turnaround is used many styles of music. The Blues Turnaround or V, VI, I (5-4-1) Turnaround came from the Ragtime Blues era. The cadence of the Blues Turnaround is backwards from traditional western music. The job of the Blues Turnaround is to show the listener where the chord progression ends and starts over, it does this by ending on the V (five) of the chord progression making it want to resolve back to the I (one).

MacLennan explains that this lick is similar to a jazz idea called “enclosures” where you embellish a note in a chord by playing above it and then below it before you hit your target note. Jon demonstrates the lick as follows; he first plays the first and second strings open and then the 3rd fret on the same two strings and then repeats this as, open, 3rd fret, open, 3rd, open. Next he plays the 3rd fret of the 3rd string, then the 2nd fret, then the open string, then a hammer-on to the first fret, this is the “enclosure”, and follows that with the open first string and then the open 2nd string. Finally Jon finishes off the lick by playing the open 5th string, first fret 5th string, and 2nd fret 5th string. Jon says that he learned a lot of this from Eric Clapton’s Unplugged DVD which he recommends checking out because “it has great guitar playing on every track”. Guitar TAB’s are available for this blues guitar lesson at BluesGuitar.com.

Jon MacLennan
Los Angeles based guitarist Jon MacLennan began his career at the age of 16 and is one of the busiest upcoming session guitarist, artist, composer, producer, and professional educator in LA. Jon has done session work for Julian Lennon, Steven Tyler, and British pop star Jamie Cullum. He has appeared on Disney channels “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and on the sound track to the movie “Marley and Me 2 – The Puppy Years”. MacLennan earned a bachelor’s in ethnomusicology and jazz guitar studies from University of California, Los Angeles, and has been mentored by Carl Verheyen, Wolf Marshall, Kenny Burrell, Anthony Wilson, Tamir Hendelmen, Jimmy Wyble and Ron Anthony which has made him a highly sought after guitar instructor today.

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